What are the top 10 reasons for accepting or rejecting a “booty call”?

Vaughan Bell (via @NoahWG) covers a study on booty calls here. There’s a September ’09 expanded discussion with the study’s authors that gives more insight on what they theorize might be the differing motivations for men and women:

“For men… a booty call offers sexual access at a low, although not minimal, cost. For women, a booty call relationship offers more affection than a one-night stand,” the authors wrote. At the same time, an existing platonic friendship that turns sexual may have a greater chance of becoming a long-term relationship.

Research also suggests that women who are open to uncommitted short-term sexual relationships tend to attract better-looking men – and good looks suggest good genes. As such, the authors believe that women may engage in booty-call relationships so as to test and enter into a long-term relationship with an attractive man.

Here’s the answer to the question I posed in the subject line:

And just because formal charts about informal things are always fun:

One more interesting thing — are booty calls actually calls?

Are booty calls initiated via phone calls – as the term suggests? 61 US-based participants with a mean age of 19.6 years were surveyed, and 64% reported a booty call that resulted in sexual activity. As the researchers had predicted, phone calls were the most common means of initiating a booty call.

But they think texting will eventually take the title:

The authors believe that digital communication technologies will prevail over phone calls eventually, as applications become more user-friendly. A more detached and less intimate form of communication may emerge, based on the way in which people communicate via mobile phone text messaging. “Instead of having a direct conversation and actually having to get rejected or to reject someone who calls for a booty call, individuals can opt to protect their self-esteem and the self-esteem of others by using text-based communication.”

And as technologies enable users to send text messages to several parties with just a few simple clicks, people will be empowered to make multiple booty calls at one go, thereby increasing their chances of success. The popularity of social networking tools and instant messaging clients will create new avenues for creative mating strategies too, as men and women continue in their quest to negotiate between sex and romance… or perhaps a new compromise.